During the hectic days of the initial Japanese onslaught against the Western powers in the Pacific, ABDA - American, British, Dutch, Australian - Command was set up to coordinate the defense of their various posessions within the so-called "Malay Barrier", that ranged from the Burma-India border to the Philippines, with this last archipelago under theoretical but not practical control. Some has been written about ABDACOM being mainly an American-British affair, with the other two partners - and their interests - playing the role of mere onlookers; e.g.: 1.- Out of 3 subcommands involved, ABDA-AIR, ABDA-FLOAT and ABDA-ARM, the only one in which a Dutch or Australian high commander - or another post close to it in the chain of command - was appointed, was ABDA-ARM, given to Lt. Gen. Hein Ter Poorten of the Dutch Army, and this mainly because the major land engagements were expected, by the time the estructure was established, to be fought in NEI territory, which the KNIL, or NEI Army, knew better than any other force involved. 2.- There was intense distrust within the alliance, originated by very differing specific interests, with too little strategic and even tactical information flowing between the respective national commands; this situation proved more evident between the British and the Dutch. 3.- ABDACOM worked as a political tool for Whitehall and the White House to try and keep their grip on their respective possessions in the Far East; when the most important involved fell (Malaya and Singapore), or were considered lost (The Philippines), the whole contraption was quickly dismantled, and responsability for a doomed battle was turned over to the out-of-a-homeland Dutch - already heavily out-equipped because of the lack of pre-war support from American and British sources, born out of distrust at the Dutch resolve to resist a by then hypothetical Japanese invasion - at too late a moment to save the NEI. Given these facts, supported by - beside Dutch authors - non-Dutch writers like Tom Womack in "Dutch Naval Air Force Against Japan: The Defense of the Netherlands East Indies, 1941-1942", can it be said that ABDA Command was a powerful, if not THE reason why the NEI fell, at least at an earlier moment than expected?
Well...I've ALSO seen it written that the whole idea of the "Malay Barrier" was fatally compromised early by the fall of Malaya and Singapore...and of course the Philippines. Given the loss of THOSE major sections of the overall defence plan - the NEI could hardly have been expected to hold out; at best it would only ever have been a glorified salient.
Some of what Warlord says is true, but whatever the weaknesses of the command setup I think the main reason for the swift fall of the NEI was the relative paucity of Allied resources at that time. The Allies were greatly inferior at sea, with no capital ships or aircraft carriers. The land forces were absurdly weak relative to the ground they had to defend, and so widely dispersed that the Japanese were bound to have superiority at any point of contact. In raw numbers I think the air picture was better, but many Allied aircraft were obsolescent. The Allies of all forces also had much less battle experience than their Japanese counterparts. As commanders, Wavell and Doorman were also consistently out-thought and outfought. I doubt that a different command structure would have made much difference.
(1958) Report on Installations and Captured Weapons, Java and Singapore 1942 From Japanese technical reports of captured Installations and Weapons.
That's a fascinating document Wills, thanks for posting it. Some notes: 1. At least one 15" gun was in usable condition after the fall of Singapore (Buena Vista Battery). I had thought they were all disabled. 2. The number of field guns and other mobile pieces captured intact on Singapore was a shock to me. I had thought the RA knew enough to destroy its guns before surrendering them. Or was that not allowed under the terms of surrender signed by Percival? 3. The 47mm Bohler guns referred to were of course ex-Italian pieces made in Italy under license. 4. On Java, the Japs captured 11 American "M1939" 75mm field guns. The US Army never had a gun with that designation, so my guess is that the weapons were actually M1897A4 guns on the split-trail carriage. 5. I wish we had a breakdown of the small arms.
I read recently in Forgotten Voices of Burma by Julian Thompson that the Japanese were using large numbers of 25 Pdrs in Burma that had been captured in Burma and Malaya
Ah, there ARE breakdowns on the small arms. More fascinating stuff. 1. The British at Singapore apparently had a small number of ZB light machine guns. That's a surprise. I can only assume that these were Chinese-type ZB26 in 7.92mm, presumably obtained on the Far Eastern arms market. That is not improbable, since we know that the British got some Mauser-type pistols that way in Shanghai. (See Skennerton on this.) 2. "A considerable number" of 12.7mm Vickers vehicular MGs are reported at Singapore. They could only have come from Lanchester armored cars and Vickers light tanks, but there were never more than a handful of either type in Malaya. 3. The British rifles are a puzzle. The Japs apparently got a lot of "Ross Enfield" rifles, but only "a considerable number" of "Lee Enfields" in Malaya. I have no idea what a "Ross Enfield" is; perhaps the Japs simply lumped all the P-14's, Rosses, and US M1903 Springfields they captured in Malaya under that heading. (Yes, some local home guard outfits in Malaya had the Springfield.) 4. In the NEI, we have something called the "Remington Enfield." These I presume were P-14 types made by Remington. 5. The number of Johnson rifles and LMGs surprised me; I hadn't realized that so many of them made it to the NEI before the surrender. 6. The Japs reported the captured Dutch Schmeissers as some kind of 8mm; I had read that these MP28's were actually purchased by the Dutch in 7.63mm. 7. Among the miscellany of Dutch pistols is something called the "Aster" in 11.43mm. Now, the Spanish Unceta company made a successful Mauser-type series under the trade name Astra, but as far as I know they were never chambered for 11.43mm (US .45 ACP?). The Chinese made some Mausers in .45 ACP in their own arsenals; is that what these are, and if so how did they get from China to the NEI? 8. The Harrington & Richardson SMGs would have been M50 Reisings. 9. The Hotchkiss MMGs were M1914s made in the US during WWI for the Russians, in standard Russian 7.62mm rimmed caliber. They sat undelivered in warehouses until 1941, when we dumped them on the Dutch. (Credit Skennerton again.) 10. The Terni rifles were of course Italian Carcano series guns. I would have hated to be a Dutch ordnance officer.
Not into standardization the Japanese! Japanese Artillery Weapons Bulletin No. 152-45 Imagine doing a replen? What have you got up there? Japanese Ammunition Leaflets Section B - Japanese Small Arms & Aircraft Cannon Ammunition
There was a thread a few months ago on AHF that dealt with these. 3. The British rifles are a puzzle. The Japs apparently got a lot of "Ross Enfield" rifles, but only "a considerable number" of "Lee Enfields" in Malaya. I have no idea what a "Ross Enfield" is; perhaps the Japs simply lumped all the P-14's, Rosses, and US M1903 Springfields they captured in Malaya under that heading. (Yes, some local home guard outfits in Malaya had the Springfield.) Not that much of a puzzle, given that the Ross was a .303 calibre...like the SMLE 4. In the NEI, we have something called the "Remington Enfield." These I presume were P-14 types made by Remington. No In WWI the U.S. Army called the P17....the "Enfield 17" Apparently when they were stored post-Armistice, it was therefore in green-painted crates with "Enfield 17" stencilled on them :p...when the Dutch got them 2nd-user on Java! It seems that Singapore was indeed the gathering point for all "booty" weapons in the area in early 1942. They proceeded to identify everything in .303 (AKA 7.7mm!) as an "Enfield" of some type!
2. "A considerable number" of 12.7mm Vickers vehicular MGs are reported at Singapore. They could only have come from Lanchester armored cars and Vickers light tanks, but there were never more than a handful of either type in Malaya. Perhaps they misidentified the fittings as "vehicular"? Given that it was Singapore... Britain 0.50"/62 (12.7 mm) MG Mark III and Japan 12 mm/62 "HI" Type Pity we have no pics of this "dump" of booty weapons...
No In WWI the U.S. Army called the P17....the "Enfield 17" Apparently when they were stored post-Armistice, it was therefore in green-painted crates with "Enfield 17" stencilled on them :p...when the Dutch got them 2nd-user on Java! Yes, that is what I meant--I just blanked on the M1917 designation for a moment and said "P-14 TYPE" to cover it. In any caliber, it was a good rifle.
USN Technical Mission to Japan - Japanese Naval Guns and Mounts, Article 2, AA Machine Guns and Mounts - US - 1946 Documents matching "japanese ammunition" | Scribd
Documents matching "ABDACOM " | Scribd Invasion of Malaya and Singapore | World War II Database British Troops in Borneo and N.E.I 1941 42 1
I don't think so. The plain fact is that the Allies were outmatched at this stage in the Eastern theatre, just as they were outmatched in the first years of the war against Germany. Japan rolled up the opposition in Malaya, Burma, the Philippines and Hong Kong and their casualties were far less than those of the defending forces. Rather than it being ABDA's fault, I think it was the failure to grasp what 3+ years of Japanese captivity would be like that made the fighting end earlier than it might have- the Guys at Rorke's drift knew what was in store if they tried to surrender, the guys fighting the Japanese did not, at least not early on in the war. This is not to denigrate or disrespect those men who fought the Japanese- I am very proud that my grandfather was among them- but I think it's no disservice to say that they were unprepared for the speed and aggression of the Japanese attack.
